“Sixty? I am fourteen. Fourteen years old.” Page 205 I Have Live a Thousand Years
This quote kind of gave me the chills because this German lady thought that this teenage girl was an old woman! I’ve never heard of anybody mistake a pre teen for sixty year old woman. I also thought about how beaten up and weak Elli must look, because I know they have been starved and beaten and abused but I never would have pictured them being in that harsh of a condition. I was taken aback when I realized this lady had no clue what had happened to these Jews. That makes me wonder were most Germans clueless? Also if more Germans had been notified would that make them stick up for the Jews/help in the final solution?
When I read this I immediately started thinking about how naive this lady was and identity loss, like how she had no clue about reality, about what was really going on in the outside world. Identity plays a role in this quote because neither the German or Elli could recognize her. I can relate to this because once I was at a housewarming party and there was this one lady who asked what grade I was in and I told her eighth and she was so surprised and she said that she thought I was in fourth grade! I was questioning myself and other people and looking in the mirror to see if I really looked that young. I can also connect to being naive because I rarely watch the news and when a really big current event popped up everybody was talking about it and I was clueless, I was completely naive because I had no idea what was going on in this current event. Many people during the time of the Holocaust were very naive, which surprises me because the Nazis crimes were very public. But at the same time this does not surprise me because the Nazis wanted to keep their actions hidden from the public but the obviously did NOT do a good job. Even though most of the time you don’t want to be naive, there is still always that one time that something is so horrible you just want to be away from it and not know anything about it, like the Holocaust.
Yes, the Nazis were secretive to a degree, but many Germans had to know what was going on. I never knew that the US government put Japanese American CITIZENS from the West Coast in camps during WWII until a friend told me about it in 1967!! Their neighbors had to know.
ReplyDeleteBob Spielman
I also had no idea about the Japanese Americans being put in camps! I did some research and according to wiki.answers.com it said that we made these internment camps kind of to get revenge on the Japanese Americans because of Pearl Harbor. I thought this was surprising because I thought our revenge was war, not these camps.
DeleteEven though that I read the newspaper and try to watch the news at least once a day, I still don't keep up with all current events. As you said, some bad news you don't want to know more about, and some good news gets taken for granted.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you because I do think that some good news gets taken for granted and I also think that people can sometimes make such big deals about small current events. Thanks for writing!
DeleteWell done Alexa. The point I feel you hit on the most with your response is questioning the German perspective as a whole. While the one woman was able to draw you to the fact that someone may not have known about the Holocaust, you then draw notice to the fact that perhaps none of the Germans knew. It is often very important to look at the bigger picture.
ReplyDeleteYes after I realized this German lady had no clue, I began to think about the rest of the world. It was very shocking because the Nazis actions were very public, they were everywhere. You would have to live in a cave to have no clue. This was also after the war so people had no idea throughout the whole time of the Holocaust. It just was crazy to find that people were clueless, they must have avoided the topic.
DeleteI don't think that the Germans were necessarily naive to what was happening to the Jews. People living far from where everything was happening, probably; but not those who were living around the area where the Nazis were searching for the Jews and transporting them. These things were literally taking place right outside their doors. I do wonder why the Germans who were against the Nazis didn't do something big to stop it, though. I think they were just scared to do anything because they didn't want to put their lives in risk and be sent to the camps or killed for trying to do something. The reason I think a lot of people were clueless was once again because of the fact that those who knew were too scared to pass the information on. Others might have, like you said, not wanted to know anything about it; or they just refused to believe what they heard.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you because I do think people wanted to refuse what they heard because they just could´t believe it, I also think that people didn't do anything about it because they were scared of higher authority because the Nazis would punish anyone who got in their way, there was always consequences.
ReplyDeleteThe last comment was to Anna W
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